From Ancient Grudge
by thatdrncat
Summary: Sirius Black's account on how Voldemort rose to power, and how it began the end of his life, and the lives of those he loved around him.
1. Introduction

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**'From Ancient Grudge'**

_Introduction_

Why did he have to do it?

I stare at the faded tapestry that covers my wall, and his name is as faded in time as it is on the fabric. I'm sure that if he was here, he would have wanted his name blotted off with a fag as well... Well, perhaps not. He was incredibly loyal to the family, but now knowing what his preferences were he would have liked the cigarette burned into his flesh instead.

When Harry asked me about him last fall, I couldn't tell him all I knew, all I had heard of him in Azkaban. All I could do was scorn his name and act as if I was indifferent to the entire situation that has long since passed. Nothing could be more incorrect- it hurt to say his name, but for the sake of appearance I spoke it with the same equanimity with which the entire sentence was spoken. But I know now that he _was_ important enough to be killed by Voldemort himself, thanks to that bastard Malfoy. Can you believe that he even came to Azkaban to tell me what happened? Fucking wanker... He didn't have to describe it in the detail that he did, but I'm sure he enjoyed seeing me finally break down and weep in front of him like one of his male whores from the underclassmen of Slytherin on their first night 'meeting him'. I didn't need for him to tell me about that- it was a public secret all through Hogwarts by the time Regulus-

Good God, his eyes when he told me... Regulus may have some intense eyes, even more intense than people had told me mine are, but when Lucius is telling somebody something that he knows will kill a piece of their soul, it's as if the devil was looking back at you. Oh wait, nevermind that statement; that would be Voldemort, or _Tom_, who is the devil. Lucius is just one of his demons. It made me proud to pound his face into the ground that day Dumbledore finally lost the eternal temperament that had made him headmaster. It was right before I was ushered back into the school that I saw Regulus for the last time. I know that it was him, but if I had seen him on the streets of London the very same day, I wouldn't have recognised him. He was my brother, but by that time I knew not who he was, and I blame myself for it. I shouldn't have done what I did... he was my _brother_, for God's sake! I'm just as terrible as Lucius, and I know that if Dumbledore had not broken us up, that non-magic bare-knuckle brawl would have gone to the death.

And I know that it is all my fault.

It didn't begin there, though. It began the summer before my seventh year, Regulus' sixth, and it is one summer that I might as well have tattooed on the inside of my eyelids- for obvious reasons that would seem clichéd if I repeated them again. Let's just say I will never forget it.

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The return to Hogwarts was three days away, and as always, I was glad to be going back. Returning to Grimmauld Place every summer was like being under house arrest for two and a half months. There wasn't any solace to be found in my family life, save for a few conversations with Regulus that he most likely intentionally spread out over the holiday. I craved these conversations especially that summer, for I had noticed a strange change in him the previous school year; where he was once social and amiable towards Remus, James, and myself, he was now aloof and distant. He never necessarily liked Peter- honestly, he rather despised him for reasons unknown to me, and he seemed to hate him even more so now. Regulus used to speak to us normally, like he would tag along with us in the manner younger brothers usually do, but now whenever he saw us he would turn away in that nonchalant grace of his that I had always secretly been jealous of. It made no sense, but there really wasn't much I could do at the times I did see him, which was in the hallways when I was on the way to a different place. I wanted to know what had affected him so, but up until this time I was for some reason afraid of speaking to him. It was probably not him I was afraid of, but of what he might tell me.

I had heard two years before of the sex scandals that ensued in the Slytherin and Ravenclaw houses, but I never really thought about it until I noticed the drastic change in Regulus. Of course I had known about sex in the dormitories, not as much in Hufflepuff, but certainly in Gryffindor and the others. I had come to understand that in Gryffindor it was a fairly casual thing among the upperclassmen dorms. When you were in the room with someone, you were to put your tie on the doorknob, and that was the end of it. If you really needed something, it was just common manners to knock on the door and if nobody answered, you weren't supposed to enter. Anyone under fifth year was not told about sex by older students and there was never a problem in our house amongst the younger classes. The fourth years were suspicious, of course, but upperclassmen would deny whatever the claims made by the fourth years. This is how it was in Gryffindor, and I assumed it was that way in the other houses, but obviously that was not the case. As I came to understand it, Slytherin and Ravenclaw had constructed potential food chains out of the underclassmen. I had known that though they were the most brilliant minds in the school, the Ravenclaws were definitely the most sexually adept. I swear, you could get off on any one of them just by glancing in their direction, forget even facing the Ravenclaws' table during dinner without getting hard. But the Ravenclaws were truly exclusive shags; neither Hufflepuff nor Gryffindor could lay any sort of body part on a Ravenclaw in those days. Harry tells me now that all of the houses integrate. I sort of wish that it could have been like that during our years at Hogwarts, but with Ravenclaws only- not Slytherins.

Though they were partially shady with their food chains, the Ravenclaws couldn't even shadow the Slytherins in sadism. I had heard the Slytherins started their Housemates at the beginning our their third year, whether the underclassmen had turned thirteen or not. As for the first and second years, they knew about what was to come to them, but were told to never speak to any officials about it. Obviously, word got out somehow, and the upperclassmen Slytherins, those who were reported to be the heads of this travesty, and forced to drink veritaserum as was school-accepted in those days. The truth had come out of them, and those students were expelled two months short of their Hogwarts graduation. I remember in my first year looking out the window at the Express coming and watching as the black-robed seventh years boarded the train.

"Dirty bastards," hissed a seventh year Arthur Weasley behind me, "Crass, perverted wretches..."

"What have they done?" I asked him, having heard only rumours. Arthur looked at me and shook his head, lost for words as he only gets when disgusted and flustered.

In my fourth year, a saucy Ravenclaw who sat next to me in Potions class told me about the goings-on in the Slytherin Houses during my first year. She explained to me the entire hierarchy that was enforced in Slytherin, and how the people who had been subjected to the abuse within Slytherin were now the heads of that hierarchy. Now, having Regulus in Slytherin (to my dismay and to my parents' joy), I became incredibly disturbed and found Regulus immediately after class. Regulus was always one to feed off other peoples' emotions, so when I showed up out of nowhere incredibly agitated and worried, it didn't take long for Regulus to act the same way, though he had no idea what I was up in arms about. Soon, I was being screamed at by my eleven-year-old brother to calm the fuck down and tell me what was going on. I smacked him in the head for using that kind of language, and then the situation got awkward. I wanted to ask him if anything... _strange_ had been done to him. But I then realised that he was under the age for them to be doing that to him, and this entire commotion had been for absolutely nothing, yet.

"Look," he said, "Nobody has touched me."

It was frightening how nonchalantly Regulus said this to me, but not nearly as frightening as the fact that I hadn't said anything on the matter but was rather thinking of how to ask him delicately. Either my little brother was clairvoyant, or could just read people incredibly well.. Probably both now that I think on it.

"Nobody in Slytherin does that anymore. Whatever Ravenclaw tart told you that this stuff was still going on was lying through her teeth."

Hah.

In the years that followed, I would find that there was more deception in my younger brother's words that day than I would have ever thought imaginable, and that the lies that surrounded us would eventually lead us down a path from which there was no return.

I would swear that our family symbolises that phrase.

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_What do you all think? Should I continue?_


	2. Trouble Ahead

**MilyMB**_- Thanks so much for the lovely first review:-) I hope you enjoy the upcoming chapter! _

**Natasha 33** _Thank you for the lovely compliment! _

**All my readers**- _By the way, this is a bit of a sequel to my story 'Both Alike In Dignity'. I wrote it as sort of a two-part thing, but you can read this one first and then go back to that one, it's just done from the perspective of a different character. You don't have to even read the other one to understand this story, but it's sort of like wearing one sock and not the other, in my opinion... _

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**Chapter One**

_Trouble Ahead_

The night was dark.

I was sitting in my room at Grimmauld Place, waiting for that disgusting house elf to come into my room with a beckon to my father's study. It was inevitable. I got a lecture from my father twice a year; the first, before I left for Hogwarts, and the other if I returned home for Christmas holiday, which I barely ever did anymore. It had been like this ever since I was accepted into Gryffindor, as my family was basically a bunch of blood purist assholes. To them, it was bad enough that I was in that house, but it was a travesty that I had actually made friends and wasn't snubbing all of the people in Gryffindor. Luckily for me, my father didn't know _anything_ about my friends. I wouldn't even mention their names in the presence of my parents.

I could hear my mother's voice if she heard about them, "_Gryffindors? It's bad enough you weren't accepted to Slytherin, but the fact that you're _associating_ with them now? Those mudbloods are a disgrace to the Wizarding world, and I will not stand for you being _near_ them!_" Or something along the lines of that... My father would probably not comment, but I would hear about it in the end. All I had to do was hope that Regulus didn't slip anything, but he was usually good with knowing what would get Mother and Father in a uproar. Merlin forbid what would happen if they found out about Remus. I thought once that that little Snivellus had peached on me, but then I remembered how well-to-do my parents were so that they would not trust the word of a half-blood.

I had been sitting on my bedroom floor, just spacing out- _pondering the universe_, as Lupin would have said, had he been there with me. God, I missed him. I missed all of my friends. The terrible thing about returning to Grimmauld place was that it was like India at the dawn of civilisation; if you came in, you could never go back. Normally, I went to Godric's Hollow with James for summer holiday, but this year his mum had gone on an entire decorating binge and even James had to seek refuge elsewhere. From letters that had been snuck in to the house I was informed that he had been staying with his grandparents somewhere south of Nottingham. He wrote saying that he didn't like it very much, as his grandfather's dog smelled my hair on him and thereby would not leave him alone. I was thereby disturbed and somewhat flattered that lady dogs took such an interest in my scent, and I'm not sure I want to know what that says about me psychologically.

Unfortunately, staying with Remus was a constant impossibility. Given his spotted family background, my mother would not have let me stay with him (like that would have stopped me), and then there was the added variable of his own parents. His father was very much the brash Quidditch player, intolerant of most things and driven to neglecting the threat of company whenever it came his way. He refused to believe that it was possible for Remus to have any friends whatsoever, because of the whole werewolf thing. To this day, I have not met the man, and I don't think I would even like to. On the other hand was Remus' mother. A lady of mild disposition, and far more believable as a parent of Remus, Mrs. Lupin was forever affected by her son's condition. I had actually met her once, when she had come to school to meet with the headmaster. She was quite the beautiful woman, or had been in her younger years. Now, when I had seen her, her once tawny hair was dusted with ashen grey and her lovely face was lined with worry and stress that had aged her a decade past her years. She looked, as a matter of fact, quite how Remus looks now. Without all the scars, of course.

And though it was always a welcome invitation, there was no way I was staying at Peter's. It wasn't as mean-spirited as you may think; though Peter was a good friend of mine, he would have never let me alone. With James or Remus, they both understood the boundaries of time for one's self, a luxury which I prized very highly. You see, if I was around a certain person or a certain group of people for an extended amount of time, I would soon grow tired of them, and digress into _hating _them until I had to stay away lest I lose my infallible and dangerous temper. In this sense, James and Remus were like-minded to me, whereas Peter had no concept of this unwritten rule of human nature. That, and he kept cats. A cat had to be _very _intelligent in order for me to like it, and I did not presume any cat of Peter's would match up to that requisite.

As I had been saying, I was sitting on my floor, staring at the moving pictures that showed less bleak and boring times. There was a Quidditch match, there was Halloween, and various afternoons at Hogsmeade. Looking at this photograph, I realised that I hadn't spoken to Natalie in months. Natalie was a young bird in Gryffindoor, a year my underclassman, and the last girl I had shagged before I had left Hogwarts. Not that this would help me in the argument whose messenger was currently hobbling through my door.

"My door was _locked_ for a reason," I said to the despicable little piece of wretched life that had broken in. There wasn't really a reason for my door being locked, it was just a habit from living in such close quarters with other people for such a long time, but I hadn't abused Kreacher yet that day, and I felt the need to do so.

"Master Orion wishes to see the young master... in his study..." he had said in his terrible drawl, ignoring my annoyed growl and then turning around to stumble away as soon as his message had been delivered, "_Blood traitor, treacherous son of my poor mistress..._"

Normally, he would have gotten a sound reprimand of my hand for that, but even I wasn't stupid or prideful enough to keep my father waiting.

Upon leaving my room, which was always lit by the lamps on every surface because of its lack of windows, I noticed through the dusty windows that it was no longer daytime, as it had been when I had left my room to use the toilet earlier that day. Now, the panes were dark with the starless London sky. It was ridiculous how long the hallway to father's study was, and not in the sense that it grows longer the more nervous one becomes. It was actually a good twenty and a half metres long. It was at the very end of the hall, and the identical white doors gave me a lulling sense of monotonous security and also a feeling of _déjà vu_, because I had walked the same path not eight months earlier when father had wanted to speak to me before I went back to school from Christmas holiday. Under all these doors but one was the blackness that dominated every unoccupied room of the house. It was the door that cast a sliver of light across my path which was Regulus'. There was no sound from his room, as I knew he wasn't too fond of music, and I pictured him sitting somewhere, reading a book with material too dark and unpleasant for a boy his age to be in possession of. Not like that would have ever stopped him.

The darkened room was a familiar sight, and the smell of paperwork and the everlasting fire welcomed me into a room that I only saw twice a year, though I had lived in that house for the entirety of my childhood. I opened the door and stepped in, and I marveled, as I did each time I entered, at the sheer size of it. Though Grimmauld looked like a regular townhouse from the outside, it had been magically enhanced when the spell was first founded in the fifteenth century. This was when Grimmauld stood alone as a brick manor, which I would have thought would be big enough as it was. Needless to say, my father had used this spell again to make sure his study was no bigger than twice the square footage of Headmaster Dippet's back at school.

Though I never asked him why he kept the room in such shadow, it did cast an eerie look over all of the furniture and the items in it, and when I stepped in, it usually took a good deal of time to see my father among all of the artifacts.

When I was fully in the room, I stood there in front of his huge and ancient desk, which was covered in papers that were strangely organised. The light from the fire and a few lit candles cast shadows over the scary-looking instruments and artifacts that glimmered dangerously inside the glass cases that were as aged as the desk, perhaps even older. As I heard footsteps walking behind the monstrous stack of books that had been arranged into a pyramid to my left, I suddenly remembered the large wad of chewing gum I had been chewing on and adding to for about five hours. Father despised chewing gum, and I had never seen him touch any other sort of candy, so I knew that I had to get rid of it. I reached into my mouth and pulled it out, which looked much worst than it tasted, and threw it into the fire. The fire turned blue and an unpleasant sound like a trumpet squeaking was heard. The footsteps stopped and all was quiet as the silence rang out through the room.

"_You had better hope that _chewing gum_ is flammable..._" My father's voice came from the right, startling me to the point where I started. I had been sure that the footsteps had come from my left.

"It was," I said, hiding my surprise, making sure the gum had all but dissolved.

Something made a small noise like the ringing of a tiny bell, and my father emerged. A strange man, my father. Tall and pale, probably about the height I am now, and always seen under dim lighting. It wouldn't have shocked me in the least if we Blacks had some hushed up vampire blood within us, due to our white pallid skin tone and hereditary black hair. It would have definitely explained my father's intolerance for the light. I looked quite like him, but his cheeks were more sunk in his ageless and expressionless visage, and we shared the same exact eyes. When I was younger, I looked at him and thought I saw myself in the future. I was partly right, only he was frightening in a distinguished way, whereas I'm more frightening in the escaped lunatic way now.

"I haven't seen you throughout, Sirius," father said in his usual emotionless tone, "What have you been up to?" He always feigned interest in my life, but sometimes now I wonder whether or not it was fake, or if he was actually interested. Whichever it was, I told him what he wanted to hear.

"I've been studying for school, just looking towards my last year at Hogwarts." I was very excited about this, though I knew I was going to miss my school terribly.

"Yes, I'm sure you are quite apt to return," father said, drumming his fingers against a miraculously bare corner of his desk. He was troubled by something, something I was sure to find out about soon enough, and didn't feel the need to ask about.

"Sirius," and here it was, "I know that you are a very... _active_ member of the student body," there was some hint of innuendo in that, "and I think it would be in your best interest if you took a less social role in the Hogwarts community this year, and focused more on your studies."

I was aghast. My scores on the O.W.L.'s had been far higher than average, and my record at Hogwarts was exemplary. Then, I realised what exactly he was talking about. I hoped to God he didn't know about that...

"What do you mean, exactly, by '_active_'?" I asked pointedly, fear tickling my chest unpleasantly.

"Sirius, you and I _both_ know that you're no virgin," my stomach turned with the sheer awkwardness of this situation, and it was even more unbearable to hear my father say such things in such an offhanded way, "So, let us just cut right to the point. If you're going to... _sleep_ around with students," I was glad to see this was an uncomfortable situation for him as well as I, "You could at least do so with people of admirable standards."

I swallowed, trying to keep my composure and not fly off that handle as I spoke in the most even of tones, "'Admirable standards'? I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, I'm sure you do," there was a mocking gait in his voice, "No mudbloods, no blood traitors, and no _young men_."

My chest seized in fury, and I stood there dumbstruck. How _dare_ he presume to tell me who I could have sex with?! I let out a short, stabbing breath of air and ground my teeth at one last attempt to contain myself, but it was all for naught. I had heard Regulus walking down the hall, and he was now listening at the door, the sneaky bugger. Well, if he wanted a show, he was about to get one.

"YOU CANNOT CONTROL WHAT OR _WHO_ I SHAG!"

The look on father's face was that of a bemused lion whose prey was growling in a feeble attempt to scare the lion off. I had seen that look many times before, and it was the balanced yet hostile tone of voice which matched the face and infuriated me even further when he said, "Sirius, would you keep your voice down?"

"NO, I WON'T!" There was no stopping me now, not at the rate I was going, "YOU CAN'T CONTROL MY LIFE! I'LL SHAG WHOEVER I BLOODY WANT WHEN I'M AT SCHOOL, AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN-"

"_Don't you dare!_" father slammed his fist down on the table with such miraculous strength that some of the stacks of paper went flying. To my right, the door creaked open a bit and Regulus now had an image to go with his sound. It was too bad that the image had to be such a terrifying scene as my father and I exchanged death glares, "Don't you _dare_ say that there is nothing I can do, Sirius. Because you _know _that there are a great many things I am able to do."

Now, it was one thing when I let my emotions come out, but when my father let loose his anger on the world, it was like the already-dim room became even darker. You felt as though you were being swallowed up along with the light. But then, he said the words that allowed me to create a darkness of my own.

"And you also know that there are a great many ways I can do away with that poofter werewolf mate of yours," It didn't matter if I had a soul or not, it was now made of lead as I listened in seething agony, "Yes, I _know _that you two have had it on, and that you hold some kind of personal connection to him, unlike your _many_ female callers. But nevertheless, I have connections, as you well know, and I could have those connections _harm _ your friend in ways that he could never imagine."

My nails were digging into my palms, and I knew that my face had been drained of all colour. Regulus was right beyond the door, and now he knew. _He bloody knew!_ I was beyond anger, beyond acerbity, and all I could do was spit out a dreadful sentence I wish I'd have had the hindsight to keep inside me, "_If you touch one hair on his head, then I will kill you with my bare hands. No magic, just death._"

Not a moment after I had spoken my father's wand, which had been hidden somewhere between the stacks of paper before they were knocked over, erupted in a burst of blue flame that hit me like a thousand fists. I remember flying backward and banging against the wall, only to fall to the floor just as hard. All I could think was, _Regulus... Don't look at this!_

Father had been hiding his right hand behind his back for the duration of our conversation, and it was only now that I noticed it. When he brought his hand around as he walked over to me, I saw a glimmer of silver across his knuckles. Heh... I knew that he owned a pair of silver knuckles, but never did I know that he would end up using them on me. He crouched down near to my ear, and whispered, knowing as well as I that Regulus was listening, "_Either you get yourself on the right path, or you are finished in this family. If you go back to that shirt-lifter werewolf, don't bother ever coming home. We won't be here._"

And with that, I felt the knuckles sink into my jaw and twist in an agonising movement, allowing me to feel every imperfection, every hint of rust that had accumulated over the years on this antique artifact of torture. I was blinded by the pain, yet no tears came. Finally, after what was felt like hours but was only seconds, the knuckles were detached and my father retreated from whence he came. As I stood, I heard Regulus' hurried footsteps succeed the clicking of the ancient door. My face was bleeding profusely, and Regulus was the only person with the right equipment with which to fix it.

My poor little brother, why were you born into such a mess?

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_Good enough for a seven month-long wait? I hope so..._


	3. Unexpectations

**MilyMB**_- Hey, thanks for sticking around! Sorry it took so long before... I'm going to do my best not to take such a long time from now on._

**Zenna**_- Thank you! I hope that you'll keep reading. _

**rockstar-101**_- For a non-slash fan, I'm flattered to have you as a reader. But like I've suggested before, my other story with Regulus was the first, and all of this is bounced off of that. _

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**Chapter Two**

_Un-expectations_

As I hobbled out of father's study, I heard Regulus' quick footsteps echo off of the close walls. It was either that, or my human sense of hearing had been heightened. The door closed behind me, nearly nipping my ankle on the way out, and I stood on the threshold, lost in thought and not looking at anything in particular as the blood gushed out of my face.

When I had run away, I doubted if anyone in the house actually noticed. Regulus didn't send word, neither did father or mother. I was rebelling though, and didn't really think about how my absence wasn't acknowledged at all. So when I did come home for that summer holiday, I was half-surprised to see that I was barely treated any differently. Mother regarded me in the same chilly fashion, father never came out of his study, and Regulus and I passed in the hall with a nod. Though, I must give the boy some credit; I remember now that when he saw me get off the train and move to his side, he stopped in the middle of the busy train station traffic and stared at me. I halted, looking back at him, and he moved closer, examining me as if he had never seen me before. He cleared his throat and held out his hand, "Welcome home, then, in advance. Why in the bloody hell would you want to come back?" At this unexpected profanity I laughed and shook his hand, drawing him into a brotherly hug that, I believe, shocked him. Now, we hadn't spoken two words to each other, and I doubt that Regulus would even remember it if you asked him.

The one thing I did notice when I came back to Grimmauld Place was an upsetting discovery found during one of my aimless wanderings through the house. The room of our family tree in which hung the tapestry depicting the members of the 'Most Noble and Ancient House of Black', was a cold and unfriendly place. It had no furniture in it, and I recall being quite frightened of it as a child. There was something about the needlepoint pictures of my ancestors that was never quite right; whomever was on that tapestry was shown exactly as they were when they were alive, but did not move as normal paintings and pictures would. Regulus and I had been there as small children, and so had my cousins, Bellatrix and Narcissa. The stitched eyes of the people seemed to gaze down upon you, as though their souls had been left behind. The most frightening of which was the image of my great-grandfather, Pollux Black. The man had worked in the Ministry within the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and was maimed while on-assignment. This final action in his career left nothing but shreds of his face, and though this could be fixed with magic, _the tapestry could never lie. _This horrifying event happened when I was only five, but I do remember my grandfather being something of a bastard, so his death didn't bother me half as much as the image of it. I've sewn a old piece of sheet over it since then. My mother, whom I have never seen show any hint of remorse or sadness, never again went into that room. Yet two generations down, nothing of my face remains except a charred bit of ancient thread with my name half-burned below it. I'm in that room now, staring at the empty branches that wrap around the room like a tree in autumn grasps on to its last bit of life as the cold winter wind blows its dead leaves off. With Regulus gone now, I reckon those branches will never be filled with the likenesses of my descendants, unless I somehow become unspeakably lucky and those impotency charms cast upon me in Azkaban had no effect. I'm trying to remember what I felt that day, standing in the exact spot that I am now, and I can think of is the indomitable apathy I felt when I looked upon my lack of image. The only thing that I could ponder about is why they allowed me to stay. I was sure my mother had stopped caring for me, and my father wanted me back to abuse into not soiling the family name any further. Perhaps it was Regulus who convinced them, but I find that highly unlikely. I suppose it will just need to be another one of those mysteries I will never find the solution to. At my age and in my position, all you can do is accept.

Though this was the case of our somewhat tragic family relationship, I concluded that Regulus and I had a sort of agreement set up when he shook my hand back at Platform 9¾, which meant that we were to act as brothers and help each other as much as we could in my last year at Grimmauld. This was, of course, relying on the notion that he _had _convinced my parents to take me back for at least one more summer, if not just to keep me in captivity.

I bounced myself off of the door frame and hobbled down the hall, my unsure steps making more than enough sound to bounce off the walls. Though my brain was thinking, I was in an insurmountable amount of pain! You try getting walloped in the face with mediaeval torture devices and see how straight you can walk!

Sorry about that... my temper, you know. Seems quite ridiculous sometimes.

I got to Regulus' door and didn't bother to knock; I knew he wasn't in a compromising position, and I wouldn't have cared if he was. Accordingly, I saw a fireball shoot into the hearth as soon as I entered, with Regulus sitting on a chair and quickly settling in with a book awkwardly placed on his lap. I marched past him and into the lavatory, opening the mirror cupboard and pulling out one of the many rolled cloth bandages that was stacked up on the inside. Now, why he had such a large amount of these I didn't know, but I would sometimes see Kreacher walking down the hall carrying a bloody bundle of them downstairs to be washed, and it was always the day after we returned home. I hadn't been there to see them in recent times previous, but following the trend that had been appearing since his third year I assumed it was still the case. Though I hadn't seen it this year, I now thought that Regulus must have finally figured out how to magically cleanse them. We never had to worry about underage magic charges as father could easily clear them up, and I suspect that Regulus used this far more than I did. You wouldn't think that blood was so difficult to get out, even by magic, but hanging around with Moony soon convinced me otherwise, and I still had to wash them. I wanted to ask Regulus why they were all bloody, a conversation which I would begin by inquiring as to the scouring charm he used, but I knew that he would never tell me the truth. I would think that he would say it was something about Quidditch, but I knew that he had no pride for his excellent Seeking skills, and would never even bring up Quidditch in a conversation if you asked him about it, even though he was the best out of the four Houses. No, something strange was going on in the Slytherin House, something that all of the other Houses were not supposed to know about. I had often seen them, walking about the halls with bruises and cuts on their hands and faces. They always kept their sleeves down, I noticed, and one day I noticed terrible red marks on a Slytherin sitting next to me in class. I was tempted to ask her what had happened, but she was a really cranky bird and I didn't want anything to do with her besides the fact that she _was _in Slytherin.

Nevertheless, I walked in and sat upon his bed, after fixing the mess I had made in his disgustingly tidy water closet, and pretended not to see all of the mirrors he had placed around his room. Either Regulus had become quite vain during the time I had been gone, or he wanted to see every corner of his room no matter where he sat. I suspected the latter.

Whispering a charm and half-chuckling at the title of Regulus' book ('_Great Executions of the Middle Ages_'), I tapped the bandages with my wand and they efficiently wrapped themselves around my face. They were a bit too tight for comfort and I suddenly thought of just _how _clean Regulus' charm made these bandages.

"What happened?" Regulus said in a terribly mischievous manner, looking over the cover of the book with our shared-coloured eyes.

I let out a long sigh and looked at a particularly intricate mirror, trying to instill the fact that I was not really in the mood for his shit, and only wanted to express it in my voice, "One of father's 'talks'." I replied, pointing to the bandages as if it wouldn't have been so bloody obvious if he hadn't been sneaking about.

"Oh..."

He didn't pick up the aggressiveness in my voice the first time, perhaps the second, "Don't _oh _me, Regulus. I know you were listening." His eyes had returned to the book before, but now he looked up, seemingly furious, and closed the book loudly, saying, "Mistrust? From my own brother?! I am shocked and disgusted that you would challenge my integrity." A small bit of a smile appeared in the left of his mouth.

At his choice of words, I now knew that he was making an attempt at sarcasm. In truth, Regulus' voice was so _even_ to the point where unsuspecting people would call it monotone, and at this I had to laugh. If not from surprise that he was trying to be sarcastic, or even from the fact that I was in a considerable amount of pain from my ear to my lips. Regulus had set the book on the table and was now staring at me intently, as if he wanted an explanation. I did my best to keep my voice even, as well when I asked him what he had heard. If I was to tell him what was going on, I wanted to hear what he had heard first so if there was a possibility I could make it sound better than it was. I was still staring at the mirror, waiting to hear his response when I looked over at him again. He was still staring at me, but with a dreamy look in his eye as if he had just ingested something that made his stomach warm, but didn't make him happy at all. Regulus never had much expression on his face, but the look in his eyes told me something I couldn't quite place, yet I had seen the look many times before.

I stood and pushed against his face in a light slap more than a push, and asked, "What the hell is your problem?"

He blinked and shook his head in a sort of daze, then responded with a confused, "What?"

"I asked, _what did you hear?_"

It was worrying to wait for his answer, as I really hoped that he hadn't heard the bit about Moony. _That_ was something I didn't want to explain to _anyone_, let alone Regulus whom I knew to secretly look up to me. It sounds pompous, yes, but I'm never pompous about things I am sure of.

Regulus sat down next to me, reclining somewhat against the bedpost and replied, "I only hear the part at the end when you were slammed against the wall."

I let out a sigh of relief, "Good."

What happened next, I couldn't quite explain. Suddenly, Regulus had his hand on my face with the other tangled in my hair and his lips nearly pressed against mine. I had barely the time to react, but I pushed him away and sort of bounced him off the bedpost, which somehow didn't bother him, "Regulus, don't..."

I was tired, and I was sore, and I really didn't want to deal with this after getting my jaw knocked off. There wasn't a thought in my mind as to what Regulus had gotten into himself, but all I could think of was that he had gotten ahold of some muggle drugs that I had been hearing so much about. What else could explain this ridiculous behaviour, except... no. No, no, _no!_ That, _that_ was something I could never deal with, and I pushed the thought out of my mind.

"Get to sleep, we're going to Diagon tomorrow." was all I was able to say before promptly standing and leaving, hardly able to look at my brother though I could feel his eyes staring at me as I marched out. Shutting the door being me, I leaned against it in a complete state of surreality. I felt as if I was going blind and deaf all at the same time, though I could still see and hear. I dragged myself to my room and flopped on the bed, not bothering to change out of my clothes or shut the door- it did that itself. My last fleeting and inappropriate thought before I finally passed out from the pain and exhaustion was, if you put a teapot in a teacozy, is that sexual intercourse to make heat after the teapot has gotten all steamed up with the teacozy just ready and waiting?

I awoke three hours later, unable to sleep due to those horrible nightmares that give you such a fright that your heart is jumpstarted and you wake up with the image of what frightened you still burned into your eyelids. In this case, I was in some sort of attic with James, and he was reading off a list of things in the room. Suddenly he said, "And that man in the corner..." And I turned around and gasped to see a man huddled in the corner in a long black robe with his back to us. I was so unspeakably horrified that I needed to turn on all of the lights in my room so that there were no dark corners, and I didn't leave until five o' clock two hours later when I was sure I had enough courage to face the dark corners outside my room in the already spooky halls of Grimmauld. If Kreacher had stepped out in front of me, I probably would have hexed him by accident, but would have felt better after doing so. Unfortunately, he didn't show himself until an hour later, glaring at the fact that I was using a teacup for an ashtray and drinking coffee out of a separate one. I really despised that stupid house elf- he never did any cleaning at all, really, and doesn't clean _even more _ than he didn't now that I'm here again.

Sitting at the kitchen table with lukewarm coffee in front of me and a muggle cigarette turning slowly into a cylindric ash between my fingers, I thought of many things, particularly my escapades back at Hogwarts and how soon I would be returning to that world after a long and lonely absence. I thought Natalie, in particular, but I really didn't know why. Perhaps it was because she was the last girl of my sixth year, but I felt as though there was something I didn't know. She seemed strange when I said goodbye to her on the train, and looked as if she wanted to tell me something before she was ushered away. The Irish Ravenclaw girl who did this, Lily (not our Lily, but someone else's), shot me one of the dirtiest look I've ever received from a girl, and I only remembered now how much it struck me. There was such a sadness in Natalie's eyes when she saw me, and I wondered for all of half an hour what she was going to say until James and Remus shooed her out of my mind. Peter was asleep within half an hour of us getting on the Express, and was soon snoring so loudly that we could not say a word without being blocked out by his nostril noises. Since James was now of age, gently _placed _Peter outside with the ever-useful _Wingardium Leviosa_ spell and dropped him on his backside after I had shut and locked the door to the booth. All I was hoping was that some unsuspecting trolley lady would come rolling through the dark and run over his feet by mistake. Though it would probably wake us all up, it would be terribly funny.

Once James had fallen asleep, there was an awkward silence between Remus and myself. I should probably explain what had happened previously to cause this uncomfortable atmosphere between the two of us.

During a recent Gryffindor triumph celebration after a particularly harrowing match against Hufflepuff (embarrassing, I know), somebody had been able to sneak in an unheard of amount of firewhiskey into the dormitories. It was enough to keep the entire House in good spirits, so to say, and I'm sure many had regrets about that night the next morning. Until this train ride back to London, Remus and I had thought we were two of these people. Unexpected and intimate fumblings in a nearby closet aren't something I really like to explain to other people, especially when I don't remember them all that well, but Remus and I both knew that we had both given and received throughout the course of the evening. We know this only because we both woke up sore, but both had the memory of pushing the other face first against the wall. Sorry to be so blunt, but this is the only way I can explain it as I still have barely any recognition of anything else that night.

As soon as we knew that James was asleep, Remus and I discussed that night as calmly as we could until our hormones took over entirely and we suddenly found ourselves snogging in the baggage hold of the train. I was surprised we were the only people in there, as I myself had taken a number of girls in that same car throughout the years, but never in my life had I thought the next person would be _Remus_, of all people. I had taken him for being more of the docile type, you know, more submissive. This was not the case at all. More times than not, I found myself on my back or shoved against the wall. His skin was soft save for the thin scars that were scattered across his face, hands, and soon I found that were on his chest and back, also. I daresay we didn't get as far as we did in the closet, and that is _not _a metaphor, nor is it a pun, but we were _very_ close. If it had not been for the noise of us banging around and the possibility that was in the back of both our minds that someone would hear us, I'm quite sure the two of us would have broken some trunks, and that _is _a pun. We didn't know what we were feeling, but it certainly felt nice. I hadn't accredited Remus with such prowess in these matters, but apparently he had been seeing a girl in Ravenclaw that he didn't even tell James and I about. Rather than being hurt by this, I asked him if it felt the same way with me as it did with her. Though it was a forward question, Remus was used to this from me and replied that though he was happy doing it, he felt that it had been more of choice in the beginning but was now more drawn to it than he had been. I felt almost the same way, and was secretly fulfilled that I had tried such a thing, as I had heard about the act of it and always wanted to experience it, but never really had the opportunity or the sand to do so. Well, a bit of firewhiskey will give anyone the sand they need, depending on how much they drink.

This brought Regulus and the previous night to my mind. What was going on with him? An unthinkable thought breached my mind, the same that had come moments after he tried to..._ kiss_ me. I quickly blocked it out and instinctively shook my head, hurting the healing wound on my face. Homosexuality, been there, done that. But _incest_? No, that was far out of my reach, especially homosexual incest. I didn't know what I was going through with this ridiculous amount of emotional risings and fallings, but I thought on it so vehemently that I convinced myself that I was furious at Regulus for what I believed he had tried to do, and I decided that I wouldn't speak to him for the rest of the the day even if I saw him in Diagon Alley.

It was time to test my plan hours later, when I was still sitting at the kitchen table, and Regulus walked through the doorway.

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	4. Infuriatingly Suspicious

**rockstar-101**_- Lovely to hear from you again, and thank you_

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**Chapter Three **

_Infuriatingly Suspicious_

It made me so angry how bloody perfect Regulus would always try to make himself look. There was no way I was going to be civil this morning, as I hadn't slept due to pain and nightmares and my emotions should not have been considered to be my responsibility. The only hope I had was that Regulus would not try to speak to me about last night, the goings-on of which I did not understand and therefore was scared and confused about. My whole approach to that was to try and forget about it entirely, and _hope _that Regulus had been on muggle drugs and he had no recollection of it anyway. His face was clear of everything but an emotionless gaze, and his black hair was swept back in a wave that my hair would have been like if I cut it at that length. I think, at that point, my hair was a bit far past my ears, but not long enough to actually _look_ long. It was straight, as well, just because I dried it that way. My hair used to be so important to me... anyway, Regulus had it combed back in a way that made him look quite like an nineteenth-century rake, and I don't even think he knew it. This fact of his effortless hairstyle spurred my anger further, which continued to grow as I looked him up and down, noticing that his clothes were neatly pressed and his shoes were nicely shined. I felt like shit, and looked it with a muggle cigarette dangling lazily out of my mouth. When I woke up early that morning, I didn't even bother to look at myself in the mirror, and I knew that I was not at my best-looking in the mornings, especially because I usually donned an off-putting scowl. This was pointed out to me by James, who said at breakfast one morning that he had only ever seen that look on one other face; the face of a garden gnome he had kicked out from behind his mother's hydrangeas.

"Morning..." Regulus said, somewhere to the left in my peripheral vision.

"Morning." I replied flatly, with all intention of ending our conversation there. Regulus had other ideas, and sat down at the table as if our talk was going to be a long one.

"Look, about what happened last night-" Shit, he remembered.

"Don't worry about it." I said, doing all I could to stop him in his tracks, but to barely any avail.

"But Sirius, I-" At this point, I was done speaking. I turned and looked at him, using an expression that I had used, regrettably, on Augusta Longbottom in first year, making the poor girl cry the night away in the girls' lavatory, "_Don't worry about it_."

This came out as more of a growl than anything else, and I was disgusted to hear my fathers' voice coming out of my mouth. How much like him was I... am I? However much it is, Regulus recognised it and got the look on his face that he did whenever father was in the room. I thought of how well Regulus was treated by our parents, and how badly I had been treated since I was accepted into Gryffindor. This fact made me even angrier, drudging up old unsettled matters with my parents and I that I'm sure darkened my expression even further. I was so wrapped up in my own emotions that I hadn't noticed the tidal wave preparing itself in Regulus. He was a soft-spoken boy, though not so much soft-spoken as to the fact that he had talked less and less throughout his years at Hogwarts, but his Black temper still simmered quietly underneath the calm façade that he wore as a mask to the world. Well, the mask had been torn off, and the large kitchen echoed with his hateful voice, shouting out the longest two sentences I had heard from him in months, "_Look, it's not my fault that you and Lupin are flamers and that Dad put a stop to it! Maybe it's better that you're not off shagging some goddamn werewolf!_"

And thus, my mask of subtle hostility was cast aside just as easily as his mask of complacency. How he knew that Remus is a werewolf I would later come to find was all of Sniv-, um, _Severus'_ doing, but now I didn't even have the emotional consciousness to ask. I stood and the chair I had been sitting on flew out from under me, and I simultaneously pushed the table out of my way, the cigarette burned into the mahogany. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him against the wall in my fury and barely noticed that he was now balancing on the back of his chair as it leaned backward on two legs. Though the muscles from Quidditch were hidden craftily under his button-up oxford, there was no way Regulus could have pushed me off, though Merlin knows he tried. The words that came out of my mouth next, I still have no idea where they came from, as they hardly had anything to do with what I had just been thinking about.

"_You're just like them. Dad and Mum, you are EXACTLY LIKE THEM,_" A true growl was forming in the back of my throat now, and I didn't care if Regulus heard it or not, "_Judging everything I do, everything I say... I'm fucking sick of it, Regulus!_"

"_Sirius, I..._"

I wasn't interested at all in what he had to say after what he just said about Remus and I, but I found myself asking, "_What, Regulus? What do you all want from me?!_"

Suddenly, something very strange happened. It couldn't have went on in more than a second, but time somehow seemed to slow. Looking at Regulus like this, his fingers clawing against me and his hair all tousled, there was a difference in his appearance. I knew the cold look that was usually in his eyes, but now there was a look of something I couldn't quite place, just like the night previous when I thought he was on muggle drugs. Strangest of all was the fact that I felt something inside me, as well.

"_Sirius, I lo-_"

"_Boys, stop fighting!_" the sound of my mother's startled and shrill voice was enough to make my ears pop as she appeared in the doorway, dressed in all of her ancient finery underneath a pristine black traveling cloak. I wasn't going to deal with this; not now, not after staying up all bloody night haunted by dreams inspired by this terrible place I had once called home.

I heard my mother's sickening babying tones she used whenever she spoke to Regulus to 'console' him, and I was somehow proud to hear an incoherent but angry retort by Regulus in response to her coddling. Believe it or not, I had once been in his place, but that was when I was young enough to be coddled. Though I felt pride for my younger brother welling up inside me, it was not enough to subside the rage that had been there before. I stalked over to the fireplace and stepped inside, grabbing the floo powder from the mantle over my head and thrusting it beneath me, shouting, "_Diagon Alley!_

It was only when I was being sucked up though the chimney did I realise what I thought Regulus was about to say.

Since I had been too angry to state exactly _where_ I wanted to go in Diagon, I ended up landing on my feet in one of the nameless stalls that are wedged between the more prominent shops in the Alley. Inside this rickety old shop there were charms that claimed to prevent attacks against werewolves, and I entertained the thought of buying one for Remus as a gift. I quickly decided this was too cruel, even for me, but bought it anyway. The witch behind the desk, who was basically the human equivalent of the shop she owned, didn't speak and was partly veiled, looking out at me through one bloodshot eye with a look of apprehension. For a moment, I thought I had somehow landed in Knockturn Alley, but upon looking outside, I saw that was false. Technically, I _was_ on Diagon, but Knockturn was the next shop over. Through this entire scenario, the woman didn't say a word to me, and I said just as much to her. Looking at the people walking beyond the dirty glass, I felt as though it wasn't real, or like I was watching something that had forgotten me, forsaking me to eternity inside this squalid little stall. When I turned around, I saw that she was gone from behind the desk, and every candle that had been burning in the shop had been extinguished, but with no hint of smoke as if they had never been lit at all. Worse still, all the merchandise was gone and the ancient tables and desks they had been set upon were covered in undisturbed dust. The ten knuts I had paid for the amulet sat on the desk that the witch had been sitting behind. Now, I knew this was possible with magic, but there was a terrible feeling brewing in my gut and something told me that I had to get out of that shop. I tried the door, but it wouldn't budge, and I inexplicably panicked. I whipped out my wand and blew the door handle off, getting out into the light as fast as I could.

It was an uncommonly cold day for summer, and you could tell that fall was well on its way. I wrapped my school scarf tightly around my neck and looked behind me at the door, swinging eerily in the breeze. Shivering, I didn't need to look towards Knockturn, already feeling the eyes of the resident dwellers in that dark and foreboding place, whose thoughts behind their eyes were pitying towards my family to have a firstborn who had gone so wrong. I walked towards Diagon, and reminded myself that I would be meeting Remus, James and Peter at Gambol and Japes, which automatically put the bounce back in my step and I soon began to run through the crowd. I was looking at all of the shops that I had to get supplies from, but they could all wait until later. I needed to stock up on some on some pranking supplies, first thing. It had been all summer, and without the normal correspondence, which James and I had grown used to it was hard to plan the sort of tomfoolery we would normally get up to within the course of a given year at Hogwarts. Haha, I love that word. _Tomfoolery_. Hah. Anyway, when I saw my friends in front of the shop, it was quite surreal, as if they weren't actually there. They were bathed in the early morning light, making even Peter look somewhat angelic and golden in front of the reflective window. As soon as they saw me, they all started calling my name and I ran over to meet me with warm hugs and handshakes from my then best friends. I use _then_, of course, towards Peter. When I met Remus' eyes, there was a close bit of awkwardness, which I quickly closed with a tight embrace. I thought it would be of bad taste to whisper something dirty in his ear, but I suddenly wanted to so badly. James wrapped his around around me, leading me into the shop and blathering on about something related to the last school prank. Before he could pull me away entirely, I gave Remus a final tantalising look that I could feel him react to.

As we were looking through the shop, Remus and I exchanging scandalous looks that only a suspicious old wizard believed that he had noticed, and kept shaking his head to convince himself otherwise. Filling our pockets with Filibuster's Fireworks and other delightful bewicked things that were more than likely to get us all expelled at some point that year, it took us about an hour before we remembered that we still had books to buy. I was the only one who didn't search through his empty pockets to see if I had enough money left- my parents may have despised me, but they weren't about to let a Black go around looking poorer than dirt, which I would be by the end of the year. It was at this point that I noticed Regulus walking down Knockturn, which wouldn't have been such a strange thing, except for the fact that Lucius Malfoy was, unnoticed, following closely behind him. For all of his talents, Regulus was practically deaf. I blame his muggle swing records. I had seen Malfoy hanging around Regulus, since we were somewhat related to the Malfoys and all, but I never accepted that fact. Whenever Lucius asked him to do something, I noticed, he would do it with no questions asked. I didn't understand this, therefore it annoyed the ever-living hell out of me. So, I really did not think twice about it until I saw Malfoy's shadow grabbing Regulus' and pressing him against a brick alley. There was a struggle (like I said, Regulus was stronger than he looked), but ultimately, Lucius had pinned him down. I turned and walked out of the shop with only a word that I don't remember to James, who was standing in line. I pushed the shop door open and ran across the street to Knockturn, glancing for a moment at the abandoned stall I had arrived in. James and Remus were close behind me, Peter was nowhere in sight, and I saw Lucius with his mouth to Regulus' ear, speaking inaudibly in what sounded like a lustful whisper. I pulled out my wand and aimed it at Lucius, ready for anything he threw at me.

"What the fuck is going on here?!" I shouted.

The sound of my voice reverberated off of the close walls of the alleyway and made the two of them jump. Regulus' deep blue eyes looked black and Lucius' white as they stared at me in shock.

"Malfoy, you let go of him _now_." I growled, moving closer.

He pulled himself off of Regulus and flipped his stupid blonde hair out of his face that held his pretentious smirk, "Alright, Black. Just a business proposition between friends, nothing to get excited over."

Malfoy only said this because my wand was right in his face and I wasn't about to move it until he was a few metres away from Regulus and myself. He looked at Regulus, who glared at him with hateful eyes, "See you in Common Room, Regulus."

With that, he walked off and I followed him with my eyes until he was out of sight. When I turned, I saw that Regulus had redirected his stare towards Remus, who suddenly looked very frightened and confused at this treatment from him. James, surveyor of awkward moments, finally found a solution, "We'll wait for you around the bend then, yeah?"

I nodded, and I heard they're footsteps walk away and _not_ in the same direction as Malfoy. Regulus was standing now, the same expressionless look returned to his face as he- _buttoned his shirt?_

"Are you alright?" I asked, as delicately as I could, moving towards him in an instinctive older brother fashion of making sure he wasn't bleeding. He paused for a moment, seeming to slow his hands and then shook me off as if he didn't want to be touched.

"What was that about, then?" I asked, more angry than I wanted to sound. I was bothered that he had glared at Remus, and I attributed it to this mornings' outburst.

"Nothing." Regulus answered, his steely voice as impenetrable of all feeling as ever. Then I noticed a medium sized mark, what looked like a _bruise_ in the dark of the alley, "What is that?" I pressed.

"_Nothing_," he said, pulling up the collar on his blazer. It looked as though his robe had been pulled down about his shoulders and his hair was a mess. Along with the unbuttoned shirt, this was really starting to bother me. I had not noticed that I was pushing him against the wall again with my questioning, but he pushed me off and began to walk away, seemingly trying to avoid the fact that we had come in contact. Wanting to forget the whole situation as much as he seemed to, I said the first thing that came to mind.

"Yeah, well, Mum was looking for you, she said that it was time to go home." This was ridiculous, as it was only midday and Regulus knew that I didn't speak to our mother at home _or_ in public.

"What about you?" He asked, not stopping as he walked.

I caught up to him, "I'm going to James' place. I'll be back in the morning to get my things." Regulus glanced at me, empty, and I said in a somewhat perturbed and sarcastic tone, "Well, don't look _too _disappointed..."

"I'm _not _disappointed." He snapped, glaring suddenly at me, "Go on, _leave_. I don't care."

I stopped, but he kept walking and I suddenly felt as though this was the right, time, though it really wasn't at all, "Regulus, I want to talk to you about... what happened last night."

He turned, and I saw his white face only in shadow, and I suddenly felt as though this was the way I had seen him all my life, when he said with no hint of human feeling, "There's nothing to talk about."

My heart sunk; Regulus had surpassed cold, surpassed detachment. For a moment, the only thought in my mind was that my brother had absolutely no soul at all.

-----

In truth, I really could not tell you what happened at James' house that night. There was no sex involved, I'm sure of that, as Mrs. Potter with her annoyingly acute hearing would have chased us all out, including James, with her wand in hand. While at Diagon Alley, James had scored a decent amount of what muggles called 'smack', and we certainly made good use of it. At this time, I did not yet know the consequences of it, as there wasn't enough to do too much to a single one of us, even Peter with his delicate constitution. I do know that, at one point, there was a black dog, a rat and a stag running about the Potter household. Godric's Hollow has probably not seen such a party since mediaeval times.

The day was rainy and miserable when I found myself standing outside Grimmauld Place early the next morning. I might have apparated there, but there was also the possibility that I had run across the countryside late that night in the form of a huge black dog. Sometimes, I thought to make that change permanent. Being a dog was much more simple than being a wizard, and what better way was there to disappear forever? If only I was younger, though. Someone would definitely take me in if I was a starving little puppy, but as a full-grown dog I was pushing my luck.

I thought of how I was going to go about this. My father was at work, my mother was most likely out of the house, and I knew that Regulus was upstairs doing something of which I didn't know. It was just like the whole of the summer! My trunk was in the doorway of my room, and I thought with some amount of glee through my pounding headache that this was the last time I ever had to enter Grimmauld Place, and the last time I would ever have to leave it. The plan was simple; I would go in, up the stairs, grab my trunk, 'accidently' drop it on Kreacher, who would not miss the opportunity to glare at me one final time, and then be on my way to King's Cross and off to Hogwarts. There was a component in my plan, though, that hung deep onto my heart with the sharp hooks that held the weight of guilt. Would Regulus even bother to say goodbye, or should I just knock on his door and say goodbye to him myself? I decided that if he did not come out to at least shake my hand as a gesture of some kind of brotherly connection, that I would be entirely through with him. We didn't speak during the school year, so this would be a relatively easy thing to do, especially for him. But I know that it would kill me in the end to do such a thing, as he _was_ my brother, even if _he_ didn't acknowledge that fact.

It would soon become apparent, though, that I did not have to make such a decision. When I walked in the door, I thought that Kreacher had attacked my face and was shoving his tongue into my mouth. Of course, I was initially horrified until I saw that it was Regulus who was on top of me. Between the second of confusion and the action which followed afterwards, I had a revelation that I was very much gagging for it, and if Regulus was apt I was in no position to decline. But also within this second I realised that we were actually brothers, and there could be nothing more wrong with this than anything else in the entire Wizarding World! Then, after this epiphany, I noticed the skill with which Regulus was rhythmically tugging at my hair and moving his tongue about that I was actually becoming tight in my trousers and there was no use fighting it. Deeper meaning suddenly meant nothing, and I didn't even think about justifying it as I kissed him back with all of the ferocity he was presenting. We fell against the stairs, with myself on top of him now, and I thought I heard his skull crack. At first I was worried that I had slammed him too hard, but then he grabbed my face closer to his and he bit gently at my mouth. This was the hottest snogging session I had ever been involved in, even beating out Remus! And when we made it up the stairs and into his room, it was obvious that Regulus believed _he_ was to be the dominant one. He didn't even look at me when we went up to the room, but grabbed me by the shirt and thrust me down on the bed. He had learnt this from someone, certainly not from me, but I was entirely too... _tied up _in the moment to think about it.

It was a constant power struggle for dominance, and I can still feel some of the bruises when I remember it. We both liked pain, that was evident, and with every pulling of the hair or clawing of closely-cut nails on his end, I felt something within him. Regulus ripped off my shirt when he landed on the bed next to me, and I did the same to him when I was finally able to shove him against the bedpost. For some reason, the kid had iron bars on his bed as well as bedposts, which turned into fantastic things to hold on to while everything went blurry with ecstasy. I came about three times within the course of the hours, and I never thought that something like that was able to happen, especially with a person younger than myself. But then I thought, was this my vanity? Regulus resembled me in almost every way. Was I doing this because I was attracted to myself, or just for the sheer pleasure of it? It certainly wasn't my inner desire to corrupt something pure and innocent, as I could tell now that Regulus was nowhere near either of those categories. No, when I felt his heat against me, I knew that this was something different altogether.

When I awoke beside him, it still being early in the morning, I was shocked at what I had done, but not entirely ashamed of it. Still, that bit of guilty conscience that always comes back to bite you in the ass was gnawing away at mine. Feeling uncomfortable to leave him like this, I tried to wake Regulus up, but there was never any use trying to do so with him. So, I took out my wand and made sure he was fully clothed, then left a note beneath his pillow. He wouldn't notice it if I left it on the bedside table, but Regulus was sure to hear the crinkling of the paper.

As I walked away from Grimmauld Place, I understood that my plan had gone horribly, _horribly_ wrong, and this would not be the last I heard of this mishap that may have been the most touching and personal thing ever to happen between Regulus and I- in our own incestuous way.

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_Where are all my readers:-( I thrive on your reviews!_

_Is this too short of a chapter? Tell me what you think._


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